Operation Arrakis: And Baby Makes--Thirteen

by Durandir

Life is tough when you're barely a week old. Tougher still when, after only just getting used to what your mama looks and smells and sounds like on the outside, suddenly she's gone and you're stuck with a handful of people who, though they might be experts on covert operations, bringing down evil dictators, and generally saving the world, don't know the first thing about child care.

Becki did, at least, know the first thing: Babies sleep. And when they're not sleeping, they eat. And when they're not eating (though sometimes concurrently) they're emptying themselves, all to make more room for eating and more diapers for you to change. Cheriss's baby currently showed no signs of wanting to sleep, and its diaper was fresh, so that left only one possibility in interpreting its strident cries. Thus, Becki had ended up in the galley of the Red Home, propping the baby against her shoulder with one hand (having belatedly tucked a dishtowel over that shoulder after the baby unceremoniously reminded her what infants do with that part of their food which doesn't land in the diaper) while rummaging through drawers and cabinets with the other. Somewhere in the clutter was bound to be something that she could use as a bottle. On the small stove she had a saucepan of milk warming; now all that was needed was a way to get it into the child.

With the monotonous blare of the infant's cries in her ear, she didn't hear the sound of quiet footsteps entering the galley. Not until she turned away from one drawer to start on the ones at the other side of the room did she realize she and her young charge had company. Raymond stood frozen in the doorway. As she caught sight of him he was hastily composing his face, but not quickly enough; Becki had a moment's impression of his surprised recognition, before he was restored to his usual calm, urbane demeanor.

"Oh, hello, Raymond," she said as casually as one can with a distressed newborn over one's shoulder.

"Excuse me," the young man said, covering well any remaining trace of his surprise. "I've disturbed you; I'll go."

"No, that's all right," she said, grabbing his elbow before he could run off and drawing him further into the galley. "You can help me. I need to find a bottle. Baby's hungry and we're not exactly well-stocked for a nursery on this ship."

"I had not thought it was," he allowed. "But I had not . . . realized there was a baby aboard, either."

He was uncomfortable, she could tell, trying to drink in the sight of the child without obviously staring. "You needn't look so shifty!" Becki chuckled. "We know it's Cheriss's baby."

"Then it is hers?" Raymond breathed a sigh of relief, or perhaps disappointment, she couldn't tell. "You are a peculiar lot, you agents! I'm sorry--when last I saw this child it was barely a day old. I thought I recognized her but--this is the last place I thought to see her, and I expected perhaps I was mistaken and it was some other baby. But how did she come to be here?"

"Apparently," Becki answered, "Cheriss gave her into Zee's care while we were with you in Agen. Wouldn't have been my first choice of babysitter! I take it there was an element of desperation."

Raymond frowned, a picture of affectionate concern: for the baby or for its mother? "Then she was there! We must just have missed her. Oh, if only--" He looked away long enough to swallow the rising emotion, then asked quietly, "May I hold her?"

"Please." Becki gladly transferred the mournful bundle to the Frenchman's arms. "Maybe with both hands free I can manage something for the bottle."

Raymond held the child gingerly, she noted, as she went back to her search. There was certainly affection in his expression, but something else as well--a wistful sorrow, perhaps. And a strong note of curiosity. Very persistent curiosity.

Intuitively she knew: It wasn't the look of a father holding his daughter. Someone else had to be responsible for the part of this baby that didn't come from Cheriss.

Having finally found a drink bulb whose design included a nipple flexible enough that it ought to do for a baby, Becki poured in the milk and turned back to Raymond. "Care to do the honors?" He smiled uncertainly but nodded, took the makeshift bottle and began coaxing the baby to drink.

"She's a pretty baby," Becki noted quietly as she watched. It was true: newborns often enough weren't much to look at, but this one had a sweet, round, pink-and-white face, thick dark hair, and clear blue eyes now studying Raymond carefully as he held the bottle for her.

"Oui, very pretty," said Raymond. He glanced up from the feeding long enough to grin bravely at her and add: "Could a child of such a mother be otherwise?"

Becki grinned in return at this mark of the man's affection for the missing woman. Raymond ought to be the baby's father, she thought. A nice, straightforward romance: the girl from the other galaxy falling in love during the course of her mission in Terra, and so on. Yet Becki felt sure the baby Raymond held wasn't his own, and its mother for whom he must care so deeply had apparently broken off contact with him. Poor fellow! But--to be sure--relentlessly she commented: "I've seldom seen such dark hair on a child so young. My mom's is black now but as a baby it was blonde. Mine too--the same with most of the women in my family. This girl's is as black as can be already."

"That," Raymond said, "she gets from her mother--black as night, and Cheriss's face the light of the moon amidst it."

"Poetic!" Becki murmured. "Raymond, one might also note that the baby's hair is as black as yours."

"Mine?" He looked up at that, startled. "Do you mean to suggest the baby's mine? Would that she were!"

"She is Cheriss's, though?"

"Without a doubt; I saw the child born to her in my own house."

"Do you know who is the father, then?"

He winced in admitting, "She never told me."

There was more here than just the sorrow of losing Cheriss--though Raymond seemed to be telling the truth, she guessed it was less than he could have said. Cheriss had lived with him, but the baby wasn't his; he had cared for her--even through childbirth--like a husband, yet she had disappeared from his life apparently without warning. The baby was all he had of her now, yet the half of the baby that wasn't Cheriss must be a painful reminder of someone else--and all the more painful, being someone never named to him. Becki let the question drop.

The child had finished eating. Raymond handed it back to Becki only a little reluctantly. (For her part, she was wondering whether he might know enough First Things about childcare to let some of the duties which had so unexpectedly fallen to her pass to him, until the baby's mother could take them up again. . . .) "Oh, by the way," she said as he turned to go, "what's her name?"

"What?"

"We can't just call her 'Baby' forever. Well, of course we could; my parents once had a cat they did that with--I mean, they called her 'Kitty' forever, 'cause they could never agree on a real name for her--but I think for a human child it'd be a bit, well, disappointing. Do you know what Cheriss called her?"

He shrugged heavily. "Actually, no--when last I saw them together, she had still not named the child."

"Oh. Well. . . ." Becki considered for a moment. "We should at least give her a codename."

"What?"

"Since it seems Terra Group's going to be looking after her for a while, we'll make her an honorary Terran. I give you--" she grinned and held the baby out to him ceremonially-- "Terra Thirteen!"

Raymond smiled tolerantly. "An odd name for a child."

"Like the thirteenth member of the squad," she explained.

"Were she mine," Raymond said abruptly, "I should give her a name to match her beauty. She is so bright--I would call her Eléonore."

"If she were yours!" Becki frowned, momentarily suspicious. "You're quite sure . . . ?"

"When I met Cheriss she was already several months pregnant," he said. "And never would speak of her time on Earth before we met. I'm sorry. Anyway--the name suits the child."

"But if Cheriss has already named her it's hardly our place to name her all over," Becki sighed. "Her proper name should come from her parents."

"Then you'll call her Baby forever, I suppose," Raymond smiled.

"No such luck," Becki grinned. "Within half a week she'll have a nickname for every hour of the day, I'm sure! 'Thirteen' is just a start. . . . Until her mother returns to tell us who she really is. And whose."

"Until then," Raymond nodded sadly.